Modeling the meteoroid environment far from the ecliptic plane

TL;DR

This paper introduces an enhanced version of NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model that accurately predicts meteoroid density and directionality far from the ecliptic plane, improving risk assessment for space missions.

Contribution

The paper presents a new version of MEM that extends its capabilities to off-ecliptic locations, with algorithms for spatial density and directionality modeling.

Findings

Improved modeling of meteoroid environment off the ecliptic.

Enhanced risk assessment for solar observation missions.

Validation of the model's accuracy in new regions.

Abstract

We describe a new version (numbered 3.1) of NASA's Meteoroid Engineering Model (MEM) in which we extend the model to handle locations that lie more than a few degrees in latitude off the ecliptic plane. We provide our algorithms for computing the spatial density and directionality of meteoroids far from the ecliptic and discuss their applications. In particular, we demonstrate how correct modeling of the out-of-ecliptic environment is critical for accurately assessing the risk posed by meteoroids to solar observation missions such as Solaris.